Franz Beckenbauer has offered a damning assessment of England under Fabio
Capello by saying they “have gone backwards” and are reverting to long-ball
football.

The German, who won the World Cup both as a player, in 1974, and a coach, in 1990, will have annoyed Capello with his verdict, which came in the wake of England’s opening Group C encounter with USA on Saturday.

“What I saw of the English in their 1-1 draw against the USA had very little to do with football,” Beckenbauer said. “It looked to me as if the English have gone backwards into the bad old days of kick and rush.

“I am not sure if the England coach, Fabio Capello, can still change much there. The English are being punished for the fact that there are very few English players in the English Premier League clubs, as they use better foreign players from all over the world.”

Beckenbauer’s comments were made in a column in a South African newspaper, The Times, and will stoke the tension between England and Germany, who could meet in the last 16 should one nation win their group and the other be runners-up in theirs.

Germany, who are in Group D, certainly enjoyed a more impressive, and better quality, start to their World Cup campaign, sweeping aside a poor Australia side 4-0.

The result increased the pressure on Capello, who brought his squad out to South Africa earlier than their rival nations because he wanted to be better prepared and was hoping to gain a victory in England’s first match against their toughest group opponents.

With injuries also biting into the squad and with some of his selections - Robert Green in goal and James Milner on the left of midfield - backfiring, Capello is facing the first serious questions since he was appointed England manager at the start of 2008.

He will certainly bridle at Beckenbauer’s verdict on the football England play under him, given how hard the Italian has concentrated on adapting the team’s style to make it more measured. In his first match in charge, against Switzerland in February 2008, he identified that the players were too dependent on hitting the ball long and has tried to instil a passing - as well as a pressing - game.

Indeed after that match, Capello’s right-hand man, Franco Baldini, commented on the lack of “technical skill” in the squad, although he now believes it has more to do with a lack of confidence.

He said: “We are trying to play more with the ball because the English culture is after two, three horizontal passes the crowd is asking for the ball [in the air].”

That has, at times, continued and Capello has reacted with frustration, for example berating goalkeeper Joe Hart for his long clearances against the club side Platinum Stars last Monday.

However, he may also agree with Beckenbauer’s verdict that England have fewer players from whom to choose.

Capello has spoken about this himself in the past, citing the low percentage of eligible players he has for his squad who play in the Premier League - 35 per cent - and privately admitting that beyond a core of 14-15 players he trusts, he has a relatively shallow pool of talent.

Nevertheless Beckenbauer’s claims, which may also be regarded as part of the propaganda of the World Cup finals, run contrary to the general perception in world football of the job that Capello has done with England. Respected coaches such as Marcello Lippi, who leads world champions Italy into this tournament, has hailed his impact, rating England among the “four or five” teams who can win the World Cup.

“England are one of the great threats,” Lippi said. “It is not because Capello is Italian, it is because he is a winner.”

There does not appear to be a history of malice between Beckenbauer and Capello, who were playing contemporaries, with the Italian representing his country in the 1974 World Cup finals in West Germany.

Certainly, against the Americans, England were not as fluent as Capello would have liked, which has been a worrying trend of late. Witness the performances against Japan in Graz, Mexico, at Wembley, and, even, Egypt, in the first half at least, going back to March, again at England’s headquarters.

It means they have to produce a far more convincing display on Friday against Algeria. Capello knows that.